4    •'. 


INSTRUCTOR    LITERATURE    SERIES 


The  Story  of  Slavery 


By  Booker  T.  Washington 

President  of  Tuskegee  Institute ;  author  of 
"Up  From  Slavery,"  Etc. 

With  Biographical  Sketch 


PUBLISHED  JOINTLY  BY 

F.  A.  OWEN  PUB.  CO.,  DAMSVILLE,  N.  Y. 


HALL  &  McCREARY,  CHICAGO,  ILL. 


COPYRIGHT,  1913,  BY 
F.A.  OWEN  PUBLISHING  CO. 

The  Story  of  Slavery 


cer  T./  Washington,  the  author  of  the  following 
sketch  of  slavery  in  America,  was  himself  born  a  slave, 
and  the  story  of  his  life  begins  where  "The  Story  of 
Slavery"  leaves  off.  He  was  born  about  1858  or  1859- 
on  a  plantation  near  Hales  Ford,  Va. ,  about  twenty-five 
miles  east  of  the  city  of  Roanoke,  in  a  region  which, 
now  almost  deserted,  was  in  slavery  days  a  flourishing 
tobacco  country.  A  few  years  ago  Ii3  was  invited  to 
speak  at  the  annual  fair  at  Roanoke,  and  took  advantage 
of  the  opportunity  to  drive  out  to  the  old  plantation  to 
visit  again  the  scene  of  his  childhood.  He  met  there 
several  members  of  the  Burroughs  family  to  which  he 
had  formerly  belonged,  and  with  them  he  went  through 
the  old  Burroughs  house,  which  is  standing,  and  talked 
over  the  old  days. 

It  was  while  he  was  living  there  that  he  was  awakened 
one  morning  to  find  his  mother  kneeling  on  the  earth 
floor  of  the  little  cabin  in  which  they  lived,  praying  that 
"Lincoln  and  his  armies  might  be  successful  and  that 
one  day  she  and  her  children  might  be  free. ' '  It  was 
here  a  little  later  on,  as  he  tells  us  in  the  book,  "Up 
From  Slavery, ' '  in  which  he  has  related  the  story  of  his 
life,  that  he  heard  the  announcement  that  he  and  all  tire' 
other  slaves  were  free. 

"I  recall,"  he  says,  "that  some  man  who  seemed  to 
be  a  stranger  and  who  was  undoubtedly  a  United  States 
official,  made  a  little  speech  and  then  read  a  rather  long 

284498 


4  THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 

paper — the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  I  think.  After 
the  reading  we  were  told  that  we  were  all  free  and  could 
go  where  we  pleased. 

"My  mother,  who  was  standing  by   my   side,   leaned 
over  and  kissed   her  children,    while   tears   of  joy   ran 
/ftown  her  cheeks.     She  explained  to  ns  what  it  all  meant ; 
|  that  this  was  the  day  for  which   she  had  so   long   been 
\  praying,  but  fearing  she  would  never  live  to  see. 

"For  some  minutes,"  he  continues,  "there  was  great 
ejoicing,  and  thanksgiving  and  wild  scenes   of  ecstasy. 
ut  there   was   no   feeling  of  bitterness.      In  fact,   there 
was  pity  among  the  slaves  for  our  former   owners.      The 
wild  rejoicing  of  the  emancipated   colored  people  lasted 
but  a  brief  period,  for  I  noticed  that  by  the   time  they 
returned  to  their  cabins  there  was  a  change  in  their  feel 
ings.     The  great  responsibility  of  being  free,  of  having 
charge   of   themselves  and   their  children,  of  having  to 
plan  for  themselves  and  their  children,   seemed  to   take 
possession  of  them.     To  some  it  seemed,  now  that  they 
were  in  actual  possession  of  it,  freedom  was  a  more  ser 
ious  thing  than  they  had  expected  to  find.     Gradually 
one  by  one,  stealthily  at  first,   the  older  slaves  began  to 
^wander  back  to  the  'big  house'  to  have  whispered  con 
versations  with  their  former  owners  as  to  their  future." 
Thus  it  was  that  freedom  came  to  Washington  and  so 
it  came,  perhaps,  fo  some  three  and  one-half  millions  of 
others  on  their  plantations  throughout  the  South. 

Shortly  after  the  "surrender, ' '  as  the  Southern  people 
/    say,  young  Washington  made  a   long  journey  across  the 
mountains  with  his  mother  to  West  Virginia  where  his 
V     stepfather  was  then  living,  and  it  was  in  Maiden  he  grew 
^    up  to  young  manhood.     Maiden  is  situated  in  the  min 
ing  region  of  West  Virginia  and   after  a   time   young 
Washington  went  to  work  in  the  mines.     It  was  while  he 
was   working  down  in  the  coal  mines  of   West    Virginia 


THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 

that  he  one  day  overheard  one  of  the  miners  reading  from 
a  paper  concerning  a  school  at  Hampton,  Virginia,  where 
a  Negro  in  earnest  would  be  given  a  chance  to  work  his 
way  through  school.  He  determined  at  once  that  he 
would  seek  out  and  find  that  school.  So  it  was  that  a 
few  months  later  he  set  out  afoot  across  the  mountain  in 
the  direction  of  Eichmond  to  find  his  way  to  Hampton 
Institute.  In  his  remarkable  biography  he  has  described 
how  he  made  that  journey  ;  how  he  arrived  hungry  and 
penniless  in  the  city  of  Eichmond ;  how  he  slept  for 
several  nights  under  the  sidewalk  in  Eichmond  until  he 
was*  able  to  earn  enough  money  to  reach  the  famous 
school  of  which  he  had  read. 

In  this  same  biography  he  has  told,  also,  of  how  the 
teacher  in  charge,  who  was  very  doubtful  about  admit 
ting  him  at  first,  finally,  in  place  of  asking  him  any  ques 
tions  about  what  he  had  learned  in  school,  set  him  to 
work  sweeping  and  dusting  the  schoolroom. 

"I  swept  that  recitation  room  three  times,"  he  said, 
'  'then  I  got  a  dusting  cloth  and  I  dusted  it  four  times. 
All  the  woodwork  around  the  walls,  every  bench,  table 
and  desk,  I  went  over  four  times  with  my  dusting  cloth. 
I  had  the  feeling  that  my  future  depended  upon  the  way 
I  dusted  that  room." 

When  he  had  finished  the  teacher  came  and  looked 
very  critically  over  the  results  of  his  work.  Then  she 
said  :  "I  guess  you  will  do,"  and  that  was  his  entrance 
examination.  —This  rather  peculiar  entrance  examination 
illustrates  the  spirit  of  the  institution  in  which  Booker 
Washington  gained  his  first  forward  preparation  for  life. 

At  the  time  that  young  Washington  entered  Hampton 
Institute,  General  Armstrong,  the  founder  of  the  school, 
was  engaged  in  a  great  and  interesting  experiment.  His 
purpose  was  to  create  a  school  which  would  give  the  sons 
of  the  freedmen  education  in  character  as  well  as  in 


THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 

x>oks.     Booker  Washington  saw  that  this  education  was 
;he   thing  above  all  others  that  the  masses  of  the  Negro 
i    A  Vpeople  needed  at.  this  time,  and  realized  better  than  any 
r^r    Jother  of  the  graduates  of  the  institution  the  significance 
.and  bearing   of  the   work  that  General  Armstrong  was 
trying  to  do.     He  made  up  his  mind  then  that  he  would 
out  into  £ome  part  of  the  South  and  establish  a  school 
ich  would  do  for  other   members   of    his   race    what 
Hampton    had    done   for   him.     His   opportunity   came 
a  call  came  to  Hampton  for  a  man  to   take   charge 
of  a  school  at  Tuskegee,  Alabama.     It  was  thus  in  1881 
that  the  famous  Tuskegee  Institute  came  to  be  started. 

This  school,  which  was  started  on  July  4,  1881,  in  a 

S     little   shanty    church,  with   one   teacher   and   thirty  stu- 

\      -dents,  has  grown  until   it  now   has  a   student   body    of 

I      1600,  with   165   teachers   and  officers,  103  buildings  and 

property  to  the  value  of  $1,500,000. 

"  In  1895  Mr.  Washington  was  invited  to  speak  at  the 
Atlanta  Cotton  States  Exposition  on  Negroes  Day.  In 
that  speech  he  made  an  appeal  for  peace  between  the 
races,  and  formulated  a  program  for  mutual  cooperation 
between  black  and  white  which  has  been  the  basis  of  all 
|$Uls  efforts  since  that  time, 

rom  that  time  on  his  fame  has  grown  steadily,  both 
this  country  and  abroad.  In  1896  Harvard  University 
conferred  upon  him  the  honorary  degree  of  Master  of 
Arts  for  service  in  the  education  of  his  race.  He  has 
received  numerous  other  honors  since  that  time  and  has 
spoken  in  every  state  of  the  Union  in  favor  of  Negro 
education.  A  few  years  ago  when  he  went  abroad  he 
was  invited  to  dinner  by  the  King  of  Denmark.  In 
April,  1912,  there  was  held  under  his  leadership  at 
Tuskegee  an  international  conference  on  the  Negro  to 
which  representatives  came  from  many  parts  of  Africa 
as  well  as  the  West  Indies  and  South  America.  The 


-p 
\\ 


THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY  7 

result  of  this  was  a  plan  to  form  a  permanent  inter 
national  organization  to  study  the  Negro  problem  in  all 
parts  of  the  world  and  hold  meetings  triennially. 

Mr.  Washington  is  the  author  of  several  books  in  ad-« 
dition  to  his  autobiography,  "  Up  From  Slavery,  "  which 
lias  been  translated  into  every  civilized  language  in  the 
world,  including  Japanese. 

The  most  noted  of  these  books  are,  "Working  with 
the  Hands,  "  '  '  The  Story  of  the  Negro, ' '  in  two  volumes, 
"My  Larger  Education,"  and  "The  Man  Farthest 
Down."  which  is  a  record  of  a  journey  of  observation 
and  study  of  the  working  and  peasant  peoples  of  Europe. 


Booker  T.  Washington 


THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 


The  Story  of  Slavery 

i 

\It  was  one  hot  summer's  day  in  the  month  of  August 
Ku9,  as  the  story  goes,  that  a  Dutch  man-of-war  entered 
the  mouth  of  the  James  River,  in  what  is  now  the  State 
of  Virginia,  and,  coming  in  with  the  tide,  dropped  anchor 
opposite  the  little  settlement  of  Jamestown.  Ships  were 
rare  enough  to  be  remembered  in  that  day,  even  when 
there  was  nothing  especially  remarkable  about  them,  as 
there  was  about  this  one.  But  this  particular  ship  was 
so  interesting  at  the  time,  and  so  important  because  of 
what  followed  in  the  wake  of  its  coming,  that  it  has  not 
been  forgotten  to  this  day.  The  reason  for  this  is  that 
it  brought  the  first  slaves  to  the  first  English  settlement 
in  the  New  World.  It  is  with  the  coming  of  these  first 
African  slaves  to  Jamestown  that  the  story  of  slavery,  so 
far  as  our  own  country  is  concerned,  begins. 

Although  the  coming  of  the  first  slave  ship  to  what  is 
now  the  United  States  is  still  remembered,  the  name  of 
the  ship  and  almost  everything  else  concerning  the  ves 
sel  and  its  strange  merchandise  has  been  forgotten.  Al 
most  all  that  is  known  about  it  is  told  in  the  diary  of 
John  Rolfe,  who  will  be  remembered  as  the  man  who 
married  the  Indian  girl,  Pocahontas.  He  says,  "A 
Dutch  man-of-war  that  sold  us  twenty  Negars  came  to 
Jamestown  late  in  August,  1619."  An  old  record  has 


10  THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 

preserved  some  of  the  names  of  those  first  twenty  slaves, 
and  from  other  sources  it  is  known  that  the  ship  sailed 
from  Flushing,  Holland.  But  that  is  almost  all  that  is 
definitely  known  about  the  first  slave  ship  and  the  first 
slaves  that  were  brought  from  Africa  to  the  United  States. 

The  first  slaves  landed  in  Virginia  were  not,  by  any 
means,  the  first  slaves  that  were  brought  to  the  New 
World.  Fifty  years  before  Columbus  landed  on  the 
island  of  San  Salvador,  the  first  African  slaves  were 
brought  from  the  West  Coast  of  Africa  to  Spain,  and  we 
know  from  historical  references  and  records  that  Negro 
slavery  had  become  firmly  established  in  Spain  before 
Columbus  made  his  first  voyage.  It  was.  therefore, 
natural  enough  that  the  Spanish  explorers  and  adven 
turers,  following  close  upon  the  heels  of  Columbus  in 
search  of  gold,  should  bring  their  Negro  servants  with 
them. 

It  seems  likely,  from  all  that  we  can  learn,  that  a  few 
Negroes  were  sent  out  to  the  West  Indies  as  early  as 
1501,  only  eleven  years  after  the  discovery  of  America 
and  one  hundred  and  twenty  years  before  the  first  cargo 
of  slaves  was  landed  in  Jamestown.  Four  years  later, 
in  a  letter  dated  September  15,  1505,  written  by  King 
Ferdinand  to  one  of  his  officials  in  Hispaniola,  which 
we  now  call  Hayti,  he  says  among  other  things  : lt  I  will 
send  you  more  Negro  slaves  as  you  request.  I  think 
there  be  an  hundred." 

Thus  early  was  Negro  slavery  introduced  into  the  New- 
World  and  what  do  you  suppose  was  the  reason,  or 
rather  the  excuse,  for  bringing  black  men  to  America  at 
this  time? 

It  was  to  save  from  slavery  the  native  Indians.  A 
good  priest  by  the  name  of  Las  Casas,  who  accompanied 
the  first  Spanish  explorers  and  conquerors,  found  that 
•  the  native  people,  the  Indians,  were  fast  dying  out  under 


THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY  11 

the  cruel  tasks  put  upon  them  by  their  Spanish  con 
querors.  Unaccustomed  to  labor,  they  could  not  endure 
the  hardships  of  working  in  the  mines.  The  Negroes, 
on  the  contrary,  had,  in  many  cases,  been  slaves  in  their 
own  country,  and  had  been  accustomed  to  labor.  At  the 
same  time  it  was  said  that  one  Negro  could  do  the  work 
of  four  Indians.  So  it  was  that  this  good  man,  out  of 
pity  for  the  enslaved  Americans,  proposed  that  the  black 
people  of  Africa  should  be  brought  over  to  take  their 
places. 

Thus  the  traffic  in  African  slaves  began,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  next  three  hundred  years  many  millions  of 
black  people  were  carried  across  the  ocean  and  settled 
in  slave  colonies  in  the  New  World.  They  were  brought 
to  America,  first  of  all,  to  work  in  the  mines,  and  after 
wards  more  of  them  were  brought  to  do  the  almost 
equally  difficult  pioneer  work  on  the  plantations.  Thus, 
in  all  hard  labor  of  clearing  and  draining  the  land, 
building  roads  and  opening  up  the  New  World  to  culti 
vation  and  to  civilization,  the  black  man  did  his  part. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  no  less  than  12,000,000 
slaves  were  transplanted  from  Africa  to  America  to 
supply  the  demand  for  labor  in  the  West  Indies,  in 
South  America  and  in  the  United  States,  during  the  cen 
turies  that  the  white  people  of  Europe  were  seeking  to 
establish  their  civilization  in  the  Western  World. 

Perhaps  as  many  as  12,000,000  more,  who  were  taken 
in  the  wars  and  raids  in  Africa,  died  on  the  way  to  the 
coast,  or  in  the  terrible  "middle  passage,"  as  the  jour 
ney  from  the  coast  of  Africa  to  that  of  America  was 
called.  Many  of  those  captured  and  sold  in  Africa,  who 
did  not  die  on  the  high  seas  in  the  crowded  and  stifling 
hold  of  the  ships  into  which  they  were  thrust,  did  not 
survive  what  was  known  as  the  "seasoning  process," 
after  they  were  landed  in  America. 


12  THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 

Roughly  speaking,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  not  less  than 
jS^OOCLrJQQO  human  beings  were  snatched  from  their  homes 
in  Africa  and  sold  into  slavery,  to  help  in  building  up 
the  world  in  which  we  live  today  in  America. 

Although  African  slavery  was  introduced  into  America 
at  first  in  order  to  save  from  extinction  the  native  people 
of  the  West  Indies,  who  were  not  strong  enough  to  en 
dure  the  hardships  of  slavery,  it  is  sad  to  recall  that  the 
^slavery  of  the  Negro  did  not  serve  to  preserve  the  Indian, 
for  it  was  but  a  comparatively  few  years  after  the 
Spaniards  landed  in  the  West  Indies  before  nearly  all 
the  native  tribes  had  been  swept  away.  There  are  today 
in  the  West  Indies  only  a  few  remnants  of  the  Indians 
whom  Columbus  met  when  he  first  landed  in  America. 

The  black  man,  on  the  other  hand,  in  spite  of  the 
hardships  he  has  endured,  has  not  only  survived  but 
lias  greatly  increased  in  numbers.  So  greatly  has  the 
black  man  increased  that  in  the  West  Indies  today  the 
l)lack  population  far  outnumbers  all  other  races  repre 
sented  among  the  inhabitants.  Altogether,  it  is  esti 
mated  there  are  now  about  24,591,000  Negroes  in  North 
and  South  America  and  the  West  Indies.  Of  this  num 
ber  10,000,000  are  in  the  United  States. 


THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY  13. 


II 

The  story  of  the  first  American  voyage  to  Africa  to 
obtain  slaves  of  which  there  is  any  definite  record,  is 
that  of  a  certain  Captain  Smith,  commanding  the  ship, 
Eainbowe,  and  sailing  from  Boston.  Captain  Smith  had 
sailed  to  Madiera  with  a  cargo  of  salt  fish  and  staves 
and,  on  the  way  home,  he  touched  on  the  coast  of 
Guinea  for  slaves.  There  happened  to  be  very  few 
slaves  for  sale  at  the  moment  and  on  this  account,  Cap 
tain  Smith,  together  with  the  masters  of  some  London 
slave  ships  already  on  the  ground,  conspired  together  to 
pick  a  quarrel  with  some  of  the  natives,  so  as  to  have 
an  excuse  to  attack  their  village  and  carry  off  the  prison 
ers  made  as  slaves.  Captain  Smith's  share  of  the  booty 
was  two  slaves  with  whom  he  returned  to  Boston. 

It  happened,  however,  that  when  he  reached  home  he 
got  into  a  quarrel  with  the  ship's  owners  over  the  pro 
ceeds  of  the  voyage,  and,  in  the  lawsuits  which  resulted, 
the  story  of  the  manner  in  which  the  slaves  were  ob 
tained  was  told  in  court.  Thereupon  one  of  the  magis 
trates  charged  Captain  Smith  with  a  "threefold  offence — - 
murder,  man-stealing  and  Sabboth  breaking."  He  was- 
acquitted  of  all  three  charges  on  the  ground  that  these 
crimes  were  committed  in  Africa,  but,  as  a  result  of  the 
trial,  the  slaves  were  returned  to  their  homes. 

This  story  is  interesting,  for  one  reason  because  it 
shows  that,  in  the  early  days  of  the  slave  trade,  the- 
barter  and  sale  of  Negro  slaves,  so  long  as  it  was  con 
ducted  in  an  honest  and  orderly  way,  according  to  the 


14  THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 

accepted  customs  and  manners  of  trade,  was  not  con- 
.sidered  a  wrong  or  wicked  business. 

At  first  the  slave  traders  purchased  slaves  only  from 
the  native  chiefs.  These  slaves  were  generally  prisoners 
who  had  been  taken  in  the  tribal  wars.  In  some  cases 
they  were  men  or  women  who  had  been  sold  for  debt. 
There  were,  also,  other  ways  in  which  one  black  man  in 
Africa  might  hold  another  in  slavery. 

Very  soon,  however,  the  ordinary  sources  of  supply 
of  slaves  was  not  sufficient  to  meet  the  demand  of  the 
American  trade.  Then  traders  became  less  scrupulous. 
They  began  buying  from  any  one  who  had  a  man  or 
woman  for  sale.  This  encouraged  kidnapping.  Not  in 
frequently  the  man  who  brought  a  gang  of  slaves  to  the 
coast  to  be  sold  would  himself  be  kidnapped  and  sold 
by  other  men  before  he  could  return  home.  Sometimes 
the  traders,  after  they  had  purchased  a  gang  or  a  "comV ' 
of  slaves,  as  they  were  called,  would  invite  the  traders 
on  board  ship  in  order  to  entertain  them.  Then,  after 
they  were  under  the  influence  of  liquor,  they  would  put 
chains  upon  them  and  carry  them  away  with  the  very 
slaves  the  traders  themselves  a  few  hours  before  had 
sold. 

As  time  went  on,  and  the  demand  for  slave  labor  in 
creased,  the  men  engaged  in  this  cruel  traffic  became 
hardened  to  its  cruelty  and  the  West  Coast  of  Africa  be 
came  one  vast  hunting  ground.flfc/Men  and  women  were 
tracked  and  hunted  as  if  they  were  wild  beasts.  It 
grew  so  bad  at  length  that  the  conscience  of  the  civilized 
world  was  aroused.  Then,  one  by  one,  the  nations  of 
the  world  began  to  prohibit  the  traffic.  England,  which 
had  formerly  been  one  of  the  nations  most  deeply  in 
volved  in  this  evil  business,  now  became  the  leader  in 
the  attempt  to  put  a  stop  to  it. 

The  importation  of  slaves  was  prohibited  in  the  United 


THE   STORY  OF  SLAVERY  15 

States  in  1808,  but  that  did  not  put  an  end  to  the  im 
portation  of  slaves.  For,  after  the  invention  of  the  cot- 
to"n  gin  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  by  Eli 
Whitney,  a  Connecticut  school  master,  slaves  were  needed 
more  than  ever,  to  plant  and  till  and  pick  the  cotton 
which  had  now  become  much  more  valuable  than  before. 

Although  it  was  no  longer  lawful  to  import  slaves, 
they  were  smuggled  into  the  country.  As  late  as  1860 
the  famous  yacht,  Wanderer,  which  had  at  one  time 
been  owned  by  a  member  of  the  New  York  Yacht  Club, 
brought  into  the  United  States  450  slaves,  and  it  has 
been  estimated  that  as  many  as  15,000  slaves  were  smug 
gled  into  the  different  Southern  ports  in  the  year  1858. 

At  this  time  it  had  become  the  custom  to  gather  great 
numbers  of  slaves  at  different  points  along  the  coast  of 
Africa,  in  what  were  called  barracoons.  These  were 
nothing  more  or  less  than  strong  stockades  made  by 
planting  trees  close  together  in  the  ground  so  as  to  form 
a  strong  enclosure  from  which  there  was  no  escape.  In 
these  barracoons  slaves  captured  in  the  interior  were 
held  until  they  were  ready  to  be  shipped. 

Swift  sailing  vessels,  which  travelled  so  fast  that, 
once  they  escaped  the  vigilance  of  the  war  ships  stationed 
along  the  coast,  they  could  never  be  overtaken,  were 
used  to  carry  the  slavfts  from  the  coast  of  Africa  to  that 
of  America. 

These  vessels  would  hover  about  in  the  neighborhood 
of  one  of  these  slave  barracoons  until  the  coast  was  clear ; 
then  swiftly  the  living  cargo  would  be  hurried  aboard, 
and  the  vessel  would  put  on  all  sail  and  make  all  pos 
sible  haste  to  put  itself  and  its  human  freight  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  police  ships. 

Usually  these  slave  ships  were  provided  with  a  lower, 
or  what  was  called  a  "slave  deck,  "  beneath  the  ordinary 
deck  of  the  ship.  In  some  instances,  in  order  to  escape 


16  THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 

suspicion,  the  ship  would  have  no  permanent  slave  deck 
but  such  a  deck  would  be  hastily  arranged  after  the 
vessel  arrived  in  the  neighborhood  of  one  of  the  slave 
barracoons.  In  such  cases  the  ordinary  cargo  would  be 
put  in  the  bottom  of  the  ship  and  then,  above  this  and 
from  three  to  five  feet  beneath  the  ordinary  deck,  a 
second  deck  would  be  hastily  improvised.  Here  as- 
many  slaves  would  be  stowed  away  as  could  be  possibly 
crowded  into  the  narrow  space. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  read  the  descriptions  of  the 
methods  by  which  this  traffic  was  carried  on  to  under 
stand  the  horrible  suffering  to  which  the  slaves  were  sub 
jected  during  this  middle  passage.  In  many  instances, 
when  brought  out  on  deck  for  a  little  air,  the  slaves  had 
to  be  chained  to  keep  them  from  jumping  overboard. 

wny|]r|     br^nk     ^Vlt    OU 


these  ships  and  the  whole  cargo,  consisting  of  three  or 
foulThundred  slaves,  would  be  lost.  It  is  saicPthat  the 
yell  ow^fever  was  brought  to  America  Jry  slaves.  There 
are~Tnstances,  jJsoA_jyJi£r£Zitie__ca2tain  of  a  slave  ship 
jettisoned,  that  is  to  sav.  threw  over-hnarfl)  a  whnln  ship- 
laj^jto-^ 


were  pursuing  him. 

When  a  slave  ship  reached  the  shore  of  America  there 
were  snug  harbors  at  various  points  along  the  coast  into 
which  one  of  these  swift  sailing  vessels  could  always 
hide  until  its  cargo  of  slaves  had  been  discharged.  The 
island  upon  which  the  present  city  of  Galveston  is  built 
was  once  a  refuge  for  slave  pirates  and  slave  smugglers. 
The  coast  of  Louisiana  is  full  of  shallow  bays,  which 
reach  far  into  the  land,  and  they  were  a  favorite  resort 
fur  slave  smugglers.  Here  was  the  hiding  place  of  the 
Barataria  pirates  who  were  long  famous  as  slave 
smugglers. 

Mobile   Bay   was   one   of   the  points  at  which  a  slave 


THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY  17 

cargo  was  occasionally  landed.  It  is  said  that  the  hull 
of  the  very  last  slave  ship,  the  Lawrence,  which  was 
captured  and  burned  by  the  Federal  troops  during  the 
first  year  of  the  Civil  War,  may  still  be  seen  hidden  away 
in  the  swamps  and  marshes  east  of  Mobile. 

There  is  still  living  in  the  suburbs  of  Mobile  a  little 
colony  of  Africans  who  were  brought  over  on  this  last 
slave  ship.  When  they  were  released  by  the  Federal 
officers  they  settled  here.  It  is  said  that  there  are  old 
men  living  in  this  settlement  who  still  speak  an  African 
language,  but  their  children  have  all  grown  up  to  be 
good  Americans. 

Once_a_ship  load  of  slaves  was  landed  on  the  American 
coast,  they  were  immediately  divided  and  scattered  in 
every  direction]  BQI&&-  wore  taken  -to—one— planta ti o « , 
o'thers  lo'ariother^  anj^o_jm__iiniiLall  jwere_dispqsed  of. 
Soor^Jhey_wej:e  so  thoroughly  intermingled  with  tbe 
great  body  of  slaves  that  all  traca  of  t.lin«a-waa  Insi^  At 
least  it  was  rare  that  anyone  ever  did  trace  a  cargo  of 
sl.aves  after  it  was  once  landed,  although  slave  ships 
were  frequently  captured  on  the  high  seas. 

When  slavers  were  captured  red-handed  on  the  high 
seas  by  the  United  States  or  English  navies,  an  effort 
was  made  to  return  the  slaves  to  their  homes  in  Africa.  As 
this  was  not  practical  the  English  government  established 
at  Sierra  Leone,  on  the  west  coast  of  Africa  a  station 
to  which  they  sent  all  liberated  slaves.  It  was  in  this 
manner,  that  what  is  now  one  of  the  most  thriving  Eng 
lish  colonies  on  the  west  coast  of  Africa  was  started. 

The  story  of  the  slave  4rade  is  on e~ef-4be-  darkest 
chajptosJn_tL.o  history  of-^h^-^eHteM^-WorH^-for  though 
it  began  in  the  compa^atiyeljL  harmless  way  already 
described,  it ^rew^teadilyjworse^ until  in  its  last  stages 
eveirWose  familiar  with  sl^v^r^JnjlajvQisflorm  came 
to  ToolTupon  it  with  shame. 


18  THE  STORY  OF   SLAVERY 

And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  the  suffering  that  it  entailed, 
and  in  spite  of  its  degrading  effect  upon  the  people  who 
engaged  in  it,  we  can  see,  as  we  look  back  upon  it  now, 
that  some  good  has  come  out  of  it.  Itserved*--fox_one 
thing,  to  bring  a  large  number  of  the  savage  people  of 
Mn^arintcTcloser  contact  with  th"  "'JigM™Tnqnt  mirl 
cjvtIizatmn_Qf-tha-WcotGrn  Worl-eU — In  the  end,  it  aroused 
in  the  minds  of  some  of  the  best  people  in  Europe  and 
America  a  new  interest  in  Africa  and  led  hundreds  of 
good  Christian  people  to  give  up  the  security  of  their 
comfortable  homes  and  give  their  lives  to  the  task  of 
uplifting  and  educating  the  neglected  races  of  the  Dark 
Continent. 

Among  the  first  and  greatest  of  those  who  gave  their 
lives  for  this  purpose  was  the  missionary,  David  Living 
stone,  who  did  more  than  anyone  else  to  arouse  the 
world  to  the  iniquities  of  the  African  slave  trade. 


THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY  19 


III 

Although  slavery  was  introduced  into  Virginia  as  early 
as  1619  it  was  not  until  nearly  one  hundred  years  later 
that  African  slaves  began  to  be  brought  into  the  English 
colonies  in  any  very  large  numbers.  For  nearly  a  cen 
tury  the  bulk  of  the  rough  labor  in  the  field  and  in  the 
forest  was  performed,  not  by  Negro  slaves,  but  by  white 
bond  servants,  who  were  imported  from  England  and  sold 
like  other  merchandise  in  the  markets  of  the  colonies. 

In  1673,  for  example,  the  average  price  of  a  bond 
servant  in  the  colonies,  so  the  historian  Bancroft  tells 
us,  was  ten  pounds.  At  this  same  time  a  Negro  slave 
was  worth  twenty-five  pounds. 

It  was  often  that  the  almshouses  and  prisons  of  Eng 
land  were  emptied  in  order  to  furnish  laborers  for 
America.  It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that  many 
of  the  persons  who  were  sent  out  as  bond  servants  to 
America  were  political  prisoners,  and  some  of  these  were 
persons  of  quality. 

When  there  was  a  civil  war  in  England  the  victorious^ 
party  frequently  disposed  of  its  prisoners  by  sending 
them  to  the  colonies  as  bond  servants,  or  even  as  slaves. 
Thousands  of  Irish  Catholics  were  sent  over  to  America 
in  this  way,  and  it  is  said  that  the  hardships  which 
these  unfortunate  bondsmen  suffered  on  the  voyage  was 
hardly  less  than  those  endured  by  the  African  slaves. 

It  should  be  remembered,  also,  in  the  case  of  these 
white  bond  servants,  as  in  that  of  the  Negro  slaves,  the 
sale  of  human  beings  began  innocently  enough.  At  the 


20  THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 

time  the  English  colonies  were  planted  in  America  there 
was  comparatively  little  free  labor  anywhere,  and  espec 
ially  was  this  true  of  farm  labor. 

The  freedom  and  independence  which  seem  now  to  be 
the  natural  rights  of  everyone  were  enjoyed  by  very  few 
among  the  masses  of  the  laboring  people  in  Europe  one 
hundred  or  two  hundred  years  ago.  At  that  time  nearly 
everyone  who  worked  with  his  hands  was  bound,  in  one 
way  or  another,  to  a  master  who  had  control  over  his 
actions  to  an  extent  which  amounted  to  something  like 
servitude.  But  it  was  to  the  man  on  the  soil  and  in  the 
country  that  freedom  has  everywhere  come  most  slowly. 
In  fact,  it  was  not  until  the  middle  of  the  last  century 
that  the  complete  emancipation  of  the  serfs  took  place  in 
Western  Europe.  It  was  not  until  1861,  two  years  be 
fore  Abraham  Lincoln's  Emancipation  Proclamation  set 
the  American  Negroes  free,  that  the  .Russian  serfs  were 
emancipated. 

It  is  necessary  to  remember  these  facts  if  we  wish  to 
understand  how  it  came  about  that  the  slavery  of  the 
black  man  and  the  servitude  of  the  white  man  came  to 
he  established  in  this  country. 

When  the  first  bond  servants  were  sent  to  America  it 
was  not  intended  that  they  should  be  transferred  and 
sold  from  one  owner  to  another.  It  was  merely  intended 
that  they  should  be  bound  to  labor  for  the  man  who  paid 
their  passage  money  until  that  sum  had  been  repaid. 
GrajluidJ^^huvveveT7^hr~their  eagerness  to  o.btain  4abor, 

people    lost_SJgllt    Of 


_ 

w.£ra__siilling  was-^mimaB-^eiags.  [Jt  was  not  long,  there 
fore,  before  the  bond  servant  was  rated  among  the  other 
property,  the  horses,  the  sheep  and  the  cattle,  in  the 
inventories  of  the  estate,  and  he  could  be  disposed  of 
by  will  and  deed  along  with  the  remainder  of  the  stock 
on  the  plantation!! 


THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY  21 

At  first  the  only  legal  distinction  between  the  bond 
servant  and  the  Negro  slave  was  that  the  one  was  a  serv 
ant  for  a  period  of  years  and  the  other  was  a  servant  for 
life.  In  the  long  run,  however,  this  distinction  made  a 
great  difference.  In  the  first  place,/.as  the  number  of 
these  bond  servants  who  became  free  increased  there 
grew  up  in  the  colonies  a  considerable  body  of  citizens 
who  had  known  the  trials  and  hardships  of  servitude. 
These  people  naturally  sympathized  with  those  of  their 
own  class  and  this  created  a  sentiment  against  white 
servitudgTf 

The  case  of  the  Negro,  however,  was  different.  He 
was  a  man  of  a  different  race  and  he  was  doomed  to 
perpetual  servitude.  The  result  was,  as  time  went  on, 
it  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  natural  vocation  and  des 
tiny  of  the  man  with  the  black  skin  to  be  the  servant 
and  the  slave  of  the  white  man. 

One  thing  that  helped  to  fix  the  status  of  the  black 
man,  and  which  finally  resulted  in  the  passing  away  of 
white  servitude  in  favor  of  Negro  slavery,  was  the  fact 
that  the  Negro  was  better  fitted  to  perform  the  hard 
pioneer  work  which  the  time  demanded.  Particularly 
was  this  true  in  th«  more  Southern  colonies,  like  Georgia 
and  the  Carol inas. 

In  South  Carolina  an  effort  had  been  made  to  reestab 
lish  serfdom  as  it  had  existed  in  England  one  hundred 
years  before.  In  Georgia,  it  was  at  first  hoped,  by  pro 
hibiting  slavery  to  establish  a  system  of  free  labor.  In 
both  instances  the  effort  failed  and,  after  a  very  few 
years,  Negro  slavery  was  as  firmly  established  in  Georgia 
as  it  had  been  in  the  neighboring  state  of  South 
Carolina. 

Still  later,  efforts  were  made  to  establish  white  serv 
itude  in  Louisiana  and  large  numbers  of  German  "re- 
demptibners, "  as  they  were  called,  were  brought  over 


22  THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 

for  this  purpose.  In-  a  very  few  years  these  colonists 
had  been  swept  away  by  disease. 

In  one  of  the  reports  setting  forth  "  the  true  state"  of 
the  colony  of  Georgia  it  was  said  that,  "hardly  one-half 
of  the  servants  of  working  people  were  able  to  do  their 
masters  or  themselves  the  least  labor :  and  the  yearly 
sickness  of  each  servant,  generally  speaking,  cost  his 
master  as  much  as  would  have  maintained  a  Negro  for 
four  years. " 

With  the  introduction  of  rice  planting  the  necessity  of 
employing  Africans  was  doubled,  because,  as  it  was  said, 
"white  servants  would  have  exhausted  their  strength  in 
clearing  a  spot  for  their  own  graves. " 

Thus  it  came  about  that  Negro  slavery  grew  up  on  the 
mainland  to  replace  the  servitude  of  the  white  man,  just 
as  it  had  grown  up  in  the  West  Indies  to  take  the  place 
of  the  slavery  of  the  native  Indians. 

It  must  not  be  assumed,  however,  that  the  Negro 
slaves,  because  they  were  better  able  than  the  white  man 
to  stand  the  hardships  of  labor  in  the  New  World,  did 
not  suffer  from  the  effects  of  the  work  they  were  com 
pelled  to  do.  The  truth  is  that  so  many  of  them  died 
that  the  stock  of  slaves  had  to  be  continually  replenished. 
In  some  parts  of  the  country  it  was  even  said  of  the 
slave,  as  one  hears  it  sometimes  said  of  horses,  that  it 
paid  to  work  them  to  death.  It  was  a  rule  on  some  of 
the  plantations  that  the  stock  of  slaves  was  to  be  renewed 
every  seven  years. 

One  of  the  effects  of  the  passing  away  of  white  servi 
tude  was  to  make  the  distance  between  the  free  white 
man  and  the  black  slave  seem  greater  than  ever.  There 
grew  up  in  the  minds  of  white  people,  and,  to  a  certain 
extent,  in  the  minds  of  black  people,  the  notion  that 
slavery  was  the  natural  condition  of  the  Negro  just  as 
freedom  was  the  natural  condition  of  the  white  man. 


THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY  23 

People  began  to  feel  that  the  black  man  did  not  have 
the  same  human  feelings  as  the  white  man ;  that  his 
pains  and  his  sorrows  were  somehow  not  as  real  and  did 
not  have  to  be  considered  in  the  same  way  that  one 
would  consider  these  same  feelings  in  a  white  man.  All 
this  sentiment  of  the  one  race  for  the  other  entered  into 
the  system  of  slavery  and  made  it  what  it  became  finally 
before  it  was  abolished  as  a  result  of  the  Civil  War. 

What  this  system  really  was  can  not  be  best  shown  by 
any  account  of  the  cruelties  that  were  sometimes  prac 
ticed  upon  slaves,  because  these  cruelties  were  not  prac 
ticed  by  the  best  masters  and  were  not  supported  by 
public  sentiment. 

The  best  expression  of  the  innate  wrong  of  slavery 
will  be  found  in  the  decision  of  a  Chief  Justice  of  South 
Carolina  in  the  case  of  a  man  who  had  been  tried  for 
beating  his  slave.  In  this  decision,  which  affirmed  the 
right  of  the  master  to  inflict  any  kind  of  punishment 
upon  a  slave,  short  of  death,  it  is  stated  that,  in  the 
whole  history  of  slavery  there  has  been  no  prosecution 
of  a  master  for  punishing  his  slave. 

It  had  been  said  in  the  course  of  the  trial  of  this 
case  that  the  relations  of  the  master  and  slave  were  like 
those  of  parent  and  child.  Justice  Euffin,  in  delivering 
the  decision,  said  that  this  was  not  so.  The  object  of  a 
parent  in  training  his  son,  for  example,  was  to  fit  him 
to  live  the  life  of  a  free  man,  and,  as  a  means  to  that 
end,  he  gave  him  moral  and  intellectual  instruction. 
There  was,  said  the  Justice,  no  sense  in  addressing  moral 
instruction  to  a  slave.  He  said  : 

<lThe  end  is  the  profit  of  the  master,  his  security,  and 
the  public  safety  ;  the  subject,  one  doomed  in  his  own 
person  and  his  posterity  to  live  without  knowledge  and 
without  the  capacity  to  make  anything  his  own,  and  to 
toil  that  another  may  reap  the  fruit.  What  moral  con- 


24  THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 

sideration  shall  be  addressed  to  such  a  being  to  convince 
him,  what  it  is  impossible  but  that  the  most  stupid  must 
feel  and  know  can  never  be  true — that  he  is  thus  to  labor 
upon  a  principle  of  natural  duty  or  for  the  sake  of  his 
own  personal  happiness.  Such  services  can  only  be  ex 
pected  from  one  who  has  no  will  of  his  own,  who  sur 
renders  his  will  in  implicit  obedience  to  that  of  another. 
Such  obedience  is  the  consequence  only  of  uncontrolled 
authority  over  the  body.  There  is  nothing  else  which 
can  operate  to  produce  the  effect.  The  power  of  the 
master  must  be  absolute  to  render  the  submission  of  the 
slave  perfect. ' ' 

In  making  this  decision  Justice  Ruffin  did  not  attempt 
to  justify  the  rule  he  had  laid  down  on  moral  grounds. 
"As  a  principle  of  right,"  he  said,  "every  person  must 
repudiate  it,  but  in  the  actual  condition  of  things  it 
must  be  so ;  there  is  no  remedy.  This  discipline  belongs 
to  the  state  of  slavery.  It  constitutes  the  curse  of  slavery 
both  to  the  bond  and  free  portion  of  our  population. ' ' 

Thus  it  is  clear  that  at  the  bottom  of  slavery  is  the 
idea  that  one  man's  evil  is  or  can  be  some  other  man's 
good. 


THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 


IV 

Although  there  was  much  of  evil  connected  with  slavery, 
much  that  tended  to  weaken  the  master  as  well  as  to  in 
jure  the  slave,  there  was  also  a  brighter,  kindlier  side  to 
the  life  of  the  slave  which  is  not  always  understood. 

There  was,  for  example,  a  great  deal  of  difference  be 
tween  ,the  life  of  a  slave  on  a  plantation  in  Virginia, 
where  master  and  slaves  grew  up  together  as  members  of 
one  household,  and  the  life  of  a  slave  on  a  similar  plan 
tation  further  South.  In  either  case  a  large  plantation 
was  always  a  little  kingdom  in  itself,  and  in  this  little 
kingdom  the  black  man  and  the  white  man  frequently 
learned  to  live  together  on  terms  of  intimacy  and  friend 
ship  such  as  would  scarcely  have  been  possible  under 
other  conditions. 

On  one  of  these  large  plantations  there  were  usually 
several  types,  or  one  might  almost  say  castes,  among 
the  slaves.  There  were  first  of  all  the  house  servants, 
many  of  whom  had  grown  up  from  childhood  in  the 
1 '  Big  House' '  or  mansion  of  the  master.  These  servants 
usually  became  in  time  very  much  attached  to  their  mas 
ters  and  their  master's  children  and  were  often  regarded 
as  much  a  part  of  the  household  as  any  other  member 
of  the  family.  It  was  to  this  class  that  the  old  servants 
belonged,  of  whom  so  many  interesting  stories  are  told, 
illustrating  the  devotion  of  the  slaves  to  their  masters. 

One  of  the  stories  that  has  been  repeated  in  more  than 
one  Southern  family  relates  how  the  old  Southern  serv 
ant  followed  his  master  to  war ;  watched  over  and  cared 


26  THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 

for  him  faithfully  during  all  the  hardships  of  the  cam 
paign,  and  finally,  when  that  master  had  fallen  in  battle, 
carried  him  back  to  his  home  to  be  buried. 

There  are  many  instances,  also,  of  which  one  does  not 
so  often  hear,  in  which  the  friendship  and  devotion  of 
the  old  servants  to  their  master's  family  continued  after 
the  Civil  War  was  over  and  slavery  was  abolished.  Not 
infrequently  these  old  slaves  continued  to  work  for  their 
masters  in  freedom  much  as  they  had  done  in  slavery. 
Sometimes  when  the  master's  family  became  poor,  the 
former  slave  secretly  supported  them. 

There  is  a  story  of  one  man  who  had  agreed  before 
the  war  broke  out  to  buy  his  freedom  from  his  niaster 
for  a  certain  sum.  After  freedom  came  he  continued  to 
make  the  payments  just  the  same  until  the  entire  sum 
was  paid,  because  he  knew  his  master's  family  was  poor 
and  needed  the  money. 

Another  class  of  slaves  on  the  big  plantation  was  com 
posed  of  the  artisans  and  skilled  workmen  of  every  kind, 
for  every  one  of  these  large  plantations  was  organized, 
as  nearly  as  possible,  so  as  to  provide  for  every  want  of 
its  inhabitants. 

Beneath  this  class  of  skilled  laborers  there  were  the  field 
hands,  who  did  all  the  common  work  under  the  direction  of 
an  overseer,  sometimes  with  the  help  of  Negro  ' '  drivers. ' ' 

In  addition  to  all  the  others  there  was  usually  on 
every  large  plantation  a  slave  preacher,  who  might  at  the 
same  time  be  a  trusted  employee  of  one  kind  or  another. 
He  was  at  any  rate  a  natural  leader  among  his  own 
people,  and  often  a  man  of  great  influence  and  authority 
among  the  slaves,  and  was  frequently  a  sort  of  intermed 
iary  between  them  and  their  master. 

The  conditions  of  slavery  were  harder,  as  a  rule,  on 
the  big  plantations  farther  South.  These  regions  were 
usually  peopled  by  a  class  of  enterprising  persons  who 


THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY  27 

bad  come,  perhaps,  from  Virginia  or  some  of  the  older 
slave  states.  They  had  removed  to  the  new  country  in 
order  to  find  virgin  soil,  oil  which  large  fortunes  were 
made  in  raising  cotton. 

In  these  regions,  especially  where  the  slaves  were  left 
in  charge  of  an  oveiseer,  whose  sole  function  was  to 
make  the  plantation  pay,  the  slaves  came  to  be  treated 
a  great  deal  more  like  the  mules  and  the  rest  of  the 
stock  on  the  plantation.  They  were  treated  as  if  their 
whole  reason  for  existence  consisted  in  the  ability  of 
their  owners  to  use  them  to  make  corn,  cotton  and  sugar. 

In  spite  of  the  bad  reputation  which  the  plantations 
in  the  far  South  had  among  the  slaves  of  Virginia,  and 
in  spite  of  the  horror  which  all  the  slaves  in  the  border 
states  had  of  being  "sold  South,  "  there  were  many  plan 
tations  like  those  of  Joseph  and  Jefferson  Davis,  the 
President  of  the  Southern  Confederacy  and  his  brother, 
where  the  relations  between  the  master  and  slave  were  as 
happy  as  one  could  ask  or  expect,  under  the  circumstances. 

The  history  of  the  Davis  family  and  of  the  two  great 
plantations,  the  "Hurricane"  and  the  "Brierfield," 
which  they  owned  in  Mississippi,  is  typical.  In  1818 
Joseph  Davis,  who  was  the  elder  brother  of  Jefferson, 
and  at  that  time  a  young  lawyer  in  Vicksburg,  took  his 
father's  slaves  and  went  down  the  river  to  a  place  now 
called  Davis'  Bend.  He  was  attracted  thither  by  the 
rich  bottom  land,  which  was  frequently  overflowed  by 
the  spring  floods  of  the  Mississippi. 

At  this  time  there  were  no  steamboats  on  the  Missis 
sippi  and  the  country  was  wild  and  lonely.  In  a  few 
years,  with  the  aid  of  his  slaves,  Mr.  Davis  succeeded 
in  building  up  a  plantation  of  about  5,000  acres,  which 
soon  became  known  as  one  of  the  largest  and  richest  in 
the  whole  State  of  Mississippi,  where  there  were  many 
large  and  rich  plantations. 


28  THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 

Some  years  after  the  settlement  at  Davis'  Bend,  Joseph 
Davis  was  joined  by  his  brother  Jefferson,  who  lived  for 
several  years  on  the  adjoining  plantation,  known  as  the 
"Brierfields." 

Joseph  Davis  had  peculiar  notions  about  the  govern 
ment  of  his  slaves.  It  was  a  maxim  with  him  that,  "the 
less  people  are  governed,  the  more  submissive  they  will 
be  to  control." 

This  idea  he  attempted  to  carry  :>ut  in  the  government 
of  his  slaves.  Thus  he  instituted  on  the  plantation  a 
certain  measure  of  self-government.  For  example,  his 
plantation,  like  that  of  his  brother  Jefferson,  was  turned 
over,  so  far  as  its  agricultural  operations  were  concerned, 
almost  wholly  into  the  hands  of  one  of  his  slaves. 
Under  the  direction  of  this  man  the  land  was  surveyed, 
the  levees  constructed  and  the  buildings  erected.  This 
same  man  was  allowed  to  conduct  a  store  of  his  own. 
He  bought  and  sold  goods,  not  only  among  the  hands 
on  the  plantation,  but  among  the  hands  on  other  plan 
tations.  Sometimes  Mr.  Davis  himself  was  several  hun 
dred  dollars  in  debt  to  him  for  goods  purchased. 

Mr.  Davis  also  instituted  a  jury  system  for  the  trial 
of  minor  offences  committed  by  his  slaves.  In  a  court 
thus  constituted  a  jury  of  slaves  passed  judgment  on 
their  fellows,  Mr.  Davis  reserving  for  himself,  however, 
the  pardoning  power.  When  a  slave  could  do  better  for 
himself  at  some  other  form  of  work  than  day  labor  he 
was  allowed  the  liberty  to  do  so,  giving  in  money,  or 
other  equivalent,  the  worth  of  ordinary  service  in  the 
iield.  There  was  at  one  time  a  school  on  the  plantation, 
taught  by  a  poor  white  man,  in  which  the  white  chil 
dren  from  the  Big  House  as  well  as  some  of  the  children 
of  the  more  favorite  slaves  went  to  school  together. 

In  this  novel  and  statesman-like  way  Joseph  Davis 
sought  to  carry  out  his  notion  of  making  the  plantation, 


THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY  29 

as  near  as  possible  under  the  circumstances,  a  little  self- 
governing  community.  After  freedom  came  it  was  Joseph 
Davis'  plan  to  keep  all  his  former  slaves  on  the  planta 
tion  and,  as  they  grew  in  intelligence  and  ability  to  care 
for  themselves,  to  make  them  its  owners.  To  this  end 
he  sold  the  plantation  to  the  man  who  had  been  his 
overseer.  This  man,  with  his  two  sons,  all  of  whom 
had  formerly  been  slaves  on  the  plantation,  continued  for 
a  number  of  years  to  carry  on  the  work  of  the  plantation 
until,  as  the  result  of  losses,  due  to  overflow,  it  became 
apparent  they  would  not  be  able  to  pay  the  heavy  in 
terest  charges  which  the  purchase  of  the  place  had  en 
tailed  and  were  thus  forced  to  give  up  the  experiment. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that  life  for  the  slave  on 
the  plantation  was  always  one  of  unremitting  labor.  In 
a  humble  way  the  slaves  had  their  seasons  of  rejoicing 
and  festivity.  There  were  the  usual  weekly  meetings  in 
the  plantation  churches,  where  they  had  sermons,  some 
times  by  a  white  minister,  but  more  often  by  one  of 
their  own  number.  It  wa's  here  that  those  beautiful  old 
plantation  melodies  sprang  up,  in  which  the  slaves 
poured  out,  in  rude  but  picturesque  language  and  in 
simple. plaintive  melodies,  what  lay  deepest  and  heaviest 
on  their  hearts. 

Sometimes  at  night,  around  the  fireside,  they  listened 
to  those  quaint  and  homely  stories  which  have  been  pre 
served  in  classic  form  in  the  Tales  of  Uncle  Remus. 

"Hog-killing"  was  a  sort  of  annual  festival  among 
the  slaves,  and  the  occasional  cornshuckings  were  always 
a  joyous  event  in  which  both  master  and  servants,  each 
in  their  separate  ways,  took  part. 

These  cornshucking  bees  took  place  during  the  last 
of  November  or  the  first  of  December,  and  were  a  sort 
of  prelude  to  the  festivities  of  the  Christmas  season. 
After  all  the  corn  had  been  gathered  it  would  be  piled 


30  THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY 

up  in  the  shape  of  a  great  mound.  Then  invitations 
would  be  sent  around  by  the  master  of  one  of  the  large 
plantations  to  the  neighboring  plantations,  inviting  them 
and  their  slaves  to  be  present  on  a  certain  night.  In. 
response  to  these  invitations  as  many  as  one  or  two  hun 
dred  men,  women  and  children  would  come  together. 

After  all  were  assembled  around  the  pile  of  corn  some 
one,  who  had  already  gained  a  reputation  as  a  leader  in 
singing,  would  climb  on  top  of  the  mound  and  begin  at 
once,  in  a  clear  loud  voice,  to  sing.  He  sang  a  song  of 
the  cornshucking  season,  making  up  the  words  very 
largely  as  he  went  along.  All  the  others  gathered  at  the 
base  of  the  mound  and  joined  of  course  in  the  chorus. 
The  whole  proceeding  had  a  good  deal  of  the  flavor  of 
the  campmeeting  and  some  of  the  music  was  wierd  and 
wild. 

One  of  the  songs  that  used   to   be   sung  on   occasions, 
like  this  ran  about  as  follows : 

Massa's  niggers  am  slick  and  fat, 

Oh!  Oh!  Oh! 
Shine  just  like  a  new  beaver  hat, 

Oh!  Oh!  Oh! 

Be f  rain  : — 

Turn  out  here  and  shuck  dis  corn, 

Oh!  Oh!  Oh! 
Biggest  pile  o'  corn  seen  since  I  was  born, 

Oh!  Oh!  Oh! 

Jones's  niggers  am  lean  an'  po'  ; 

Oh!  Oh!  Oh! 
Don't  know  whether  dey  get  'nough  to  eat  or  no, 

Oh!  Oh!  Oh! 


THE  STORY  OF  SLAVERY  31 

Refrain  : — 

Turn  out  here  and  shuck  clis  corn, 

Oh!  Oh!  Oh! 

Biggest  pile  o'  corn  seen  since  I  was  born, 
Oh!  Oh!  Oh! 

Half  the  charm  of  Southern  life  was  made  by  the 
presence  of  the  Negro.  The  homes  that  had  no  Negro 
servants  were  dreary  by  contrast  with  those  that  did. 

The  native  quality  of  the  Negro,  his  natural  sympathy,  ^ 
cheerfulness  and  good  humor,  and  above  all  his  fidelity 
to  his  master  and  his  master's  children,  helped  to  make 
slavery,  for  both  white  man  and  black  man,  a  very  much 
more  tolerable  institution  than  it  would  otherwise  have 
be^n.  ^^ 

Almost  all  that  has  been  said  of  slavery,  whether  good 
or  bad,  is  probably  true  as  far  as  it  goes.     The  institu 
tion  had  its  heartless  and  its  human  side,  and,  since 
slavery  is  no  more,  it  is  perhaps  better  to  close  this 
this  brighter  and  more  cheerful  view. 


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